Elderly Social Care (Insurance) Bill [HL]

Lord Wigley Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 16th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wigley (PC) [V]]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, for introducing this Bill, which gives the House and the Government a basis on which to respond to the ideas that he has proposed over several years and which draw on his experience as Secretary of State for social services. The thinking that he has put to the House today and has outlined previously in publications and speeches must be taken seriously, as it addresses a subject that successive Governments have failed to resolve.

Four factors have made this increasingly pressing over subsequent decades: the higher level of home ownership today compared to in previous generations; the longer life expectation of those who own those homes and extended periods of dependency; the breakdown of the close extended family, which provides care for elderly relatives in the family; and the massive financial challenge facing young people seeking to buy their first home and increasingly resorting to the bank of mum and dad.

This insurance-based Bill offers one way forward. It may not be the only way and it may not address all circumstances, but that does not mean that it cannot have a role to play. It should not be swept aside because it does not deal with every challenge in this field. I support the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Best, and others, particularly on having free social care in the same way as we have free healthcare. There must be an integrated approach, but that does not mean that there is no role for this Bill’s approach.

We shall have an opportunity to consider the detailed issues that have arisen today. I ask the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, only one question relating to the Bill’s applicability. It is an England-only Bill. I have no problem with that; I would however ask whether there may be difficulties if similar legislation is not enacted by the devolved Governments, who have responsibility for social care and housing but not social security. What would be the position of a couple living in England who had taken advantage of the provisions of this legislation but then want to move to Scotland or Wales because their children or grandchildren live there? Would they lose the provisions on which they had depended under this Bill?

Finally, from the viewpoint of local government, whose responsibilities seem to increase by the month and whose resources seem ever more squeezed, can legislative provisions to ensure that central government is obliged to fund these responsibilities ever be totally watertight? Having said that, I support the Second Reading of the Bill.